Chapter 13 Past #2
Aaron just gives me one of his top ten mildly exasperated looks, nose wrinkled at the bridge and eyebrows drawn tight together. “My ex-wife is perfectly alive and, trust me, does not give a single shit who I sleep with.”
Not that I care what box he’d check on any possible tax returns, but it makes me feel some kind of way to have it confirmed there’s a random, faceless woman out there who knows what the inside of Aaron’s mouth tastes like.
I think I preferred it when I assumed she was dead and had already taken that knowledge into the dirt with her.
“Why’d she divorce you?” I can’t help but prod, the acidic pain in the back of my throat rising like the build up of bile. “Did you cheat on her with another junior agent with daddy issues? Am I part of an insidious pattern of behaviour? Am I a bad coping mechanism?”
Aaron gets down from his seat and walks over to a yellow teapot sitting on the side. It has fucking daisies on it. I am in a house where Aaron’s marriage broke down and presumably he got to keep the teapot in their divorce. What a world. What a time to be not-dead. Holy fuck.
I need to get out of here as soon as possible before I lose my actual mind and start wanting to embroider pillows or some other such evil.
Aaron takes out a plain white mug from one of the cupboards and pours coffee into it.
He shoves the cup in my direction and waits until I take it from him.
He stands far enough away from me that I don’t feel boxed in by his very existence in my proximity, but our fingers brush when the mug passes from him to me.
Small electric shocks spark along every inch of skin he touches.
It’s too fast for me to react, which is good because if he’d lingered I would have been forced to use my power against him.
I still might if he bridges the distance any more than he already has.
“There,” he says, tilting his head at the coffee. “Drink that and simmer down before you hurt yourself.”
I look from my cup to his still sitting on the kitchen island next to his bowl of cereal.
“You don’t like coffee.” It sounds like an accusation coming out of my mouth and that’s because it is.
Aaron complained more than once about my desperate need for coffee in the brief time we worked together, stating his utter distaste, which is why I figured he was drinking tea this morning.
Aaron props his hip up against the counter and rolls his shoulders in a small shrug. “But you do.” As if it’s that simple. I don’t want to deal with the implication that he bought coffee, which he hates, specifically for me.
I take a sip from the mug and blanch inwardly when I realise it’s my preferred blend, which is expensive and not something you’d choose by accident.
Either I must have mentioned it off hand at some point or Aaron has that information written down somewhere in a file from when he was gathering intel about me before I was hired by FISA.
Clutching the mug like it’s my only chance of survival, I flick a narrowed eyed look up at Aaron, who’s watching me again with that facade of nonchalance. I want to tell him it comes off fake as hell, but that’s not even true.
“North,” I say, less antagonistic this time, “why’d you bring me here?” To his home. He probably pays a mortgage and council tax for this place, what the fuck?
Aaron loosely crosses his arms, a classic defensive posture whether he wants to admit to feeling uncomfortable or not. “I know how much you hate being in medical.”
It’s not an answer, not really, but it’s the best I’m probably going to get out of him, especially after all the mouthing off I did before.
“Where is here?” I ask, darting a glance around like coordinates will magically appear from behind the fridge.
“Rohan,” Aaron says, broad shoulders relaxing slightly now we’re back on less testy ground. “Do you expect me to believe you don’t know exactly where I live?”
Aaron North, bizarre individual that he is, lives in a place called Colbie. It’s a tiny seaside town not too far outside Danger City. I followed him back here once when I was tailing him around for a week. But it would ruin the game if I admitted that to him.
I stare back at him, guileless, and he snorts but doesn’t push it.
“Does Snow know I’m here?” I ask, already pretty certain of the answer.
Aaron confirms it with a sharp nod. “I told her on the way, and she cleared it. You’re expected to report back with me once you’ve healed up.”
Told her on the way. Interesting. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I guess. But.
“Hold on, you were there?” I say, frowning at him. “At the docks, I mean.”
Aaron tilts his chin up like he’s bracing for impact, too stubborn to back down even when he knows he should. “We were on high alert after you turned off your comm unit, and when you didn’t check in when you were supposed to, we came to find you.”
“But why were you there at all?” I push. I push because I don’t understand and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s not understanding shit, especially when it feels like I should. “You’re not my handler anymore.” I know I’m stating the obvious, but it feels important to point that out.
“After what happened during your last mission,” Aaron says, anger sparking in his eyes like a lit fuse chucked onto a line of gun powder.
“I was concerned about letting you go off with another temporary handler. I was afraid of how you’d react with another person you don’t trust in your ear.
” He gives me a pointed look. “And I was right to worry, apparently.”
I bristle at that, despite the fact he’s right. “So what? You shadowed my temp handler because you thought I’d do something stupid?”
Aaron’s expression softens, becomes less confrontational.
“I know trust is difficult for you, kid, and I can’t blame you for losing faith in us after you almost got killed in Siberia.
” He sounds so reasonable about it, so genuinely understanding, that I momentarily consider the prospect of chucking my scalding hot coffee in his face.
Really, it’s only my craving for the drink itself that holds me back.
I have no idea how to feel about any of this shit. What Aaron did, and the reason why he did it? It’s too much to process right here, right now.
It’s just. The man put me in his house and in his bed and in his clothes. He broke his own rules, not once or twice, but three times, for me. He came after me when I needed help and saved my life when he has no reason to care about me anymore after he stopped being my handler.
I know what it feels like to be owned, the ice-cold bite of metal clamped around your throat and wrists, invisible manacles and chains trapping your soul in a chokehold.
This, what he’s doing, has been doing with me almost the whole time, is the same thing in so many ways, but it doesn’t feel the same at all.
It feels dangerously close to something good.
To being coveted, protected, rather than possessed.
“You ever gonna get off that kid shit?” I take another drunk from my cup and stare him down over the rim.
Aaron doesn’t flinch, taking that uppercut to the jaw like an experienced prize fighter. He doesn’t even have the decency to look thrown off by the non-sequitur.
“Why?” he asks, dropping his arms and turning to brace his large hands on the countertop, fingers splayed out, taking up more space than they need to across the wooden surface.
His shoulders are slightly hunched due to how he’s standing, but there’s no tension in them.
He’s watching me speculatively. “Does me calling you kid bother you?”
“Would you stop if it did?”
Aaron doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Thought you’d be the one who’d find it weird. After we…” I shrug, pulling a face at myself for not being able to just say the words. “You know.”
He must be on one today, because he doesn’t make it easy. “You know…?”
I glare at him, scornful of the fact he’s playing with me, but Aaron just stands there, waiting, until I release an exasperated breath and state bluntly, “We fucked.”
Then Aaron has the gall to get snarky about it. “Yeah, I remember. I was there.”
“But, like.” I’m still glaring, but now it’s more out of confusion than genuine anger. “You were the one who made a big deal out of it-“
“I didn’t make a big deal out of anything,” Aaron interrupts before I can work myself up into a good tirade, which pisses me off all over again because I love any chance to legitimately rant at people.
“I told you the rules and what would happen if we broke them,” Aaron says without inflection, adding a little shrug of his broad shoulders just to be a bitch. “That’s it.”
What about all the rules you’ve broken for me since then? I don’t ask the question aloud even though I really fucking want to.
When I don’t respond for a while, Aaron takes that as a sign to change the direction of this conversation. Altercation? Whatever we’re calling it.
“How are your injuries?”
Feeling bold, or maybe just frustrated and tired and still mildly pissed off, because I’m always pissed off to some degree at all times, I put my coffee cup down and reach for the bottom of my—Aaron’s—t-shirt.
I drag it up and over my head, wincing a little at the burn when the sudden movement tugs at my still somewhat tender wounds.
I drop Aaron’s t-shirt to the kitchen floor and stand back from the counter, holding my arms out slightly.
“You tell me,” I say, smirking at him rakishly. “Do I look all healed up to you, ex-boss?”